When you press the shutter release on a camera, there's usually a lag time or delay before the shutter actually fires. This corresponds to the time required for the autofocus and autoexposure mechanisms time to do their work, and can amount to a fairly long delay in some situations. Since this number is rarely reported on (and even more rarely reported accurately), and can significantly affect the picture taking experience, I routinely measure both shutter delay and shot to shot cycle times for all cameras I test, using a test system I designed and built for the purpose. (Crystal-controlled, with a resolution of 0.001 second.) Here are the numbers I collected for the Olympus 5500 Zoom:

Olympus C-5500 Zoom Timings

Operation

Time
(secs)

Notes

Power On -> First shot

1.7

LCD turns on and lens extends forward. Pretty fast for a camera with a telescoping lens.

Shutdown

1.6 - 19

First time is time to retract lens, second time is worst-case buffer-clearing time. Pretty fast, worst-case clearing times corresponds to 64 small/basic files clearing in continuous shooting mode. Worst case for large/fine single shot mode is 4 seconds.

Play to Record, first shot

1.1

Time until first shot is captured. About average.

Record to play

5.9 / 2.4

First time is that required to display a large/fine file immediately after capture, second time is that needed to display a large/fine file that has already been processed and stored on the memory card. A little slow.

Shutter lag, full autofocus

0.95 / 0.97

First time is at full wide-angle, second is full telephoto. A little slow by current standards.

Shutter lag, prefocus

0.184

Time to capture, after half-pressing shutter button. Very fast.

Cycle Time, max/min resolution

4.28 / 2.46

First number is for large/fine files, second number is time for "TV" mode (640x480) images. Times are averages. All shots are at this speed. (Seemingly no buffer memory.) Not too impressive by current standards. (We don't have a timing figure for it, but shooting in "HQ" mode does speed things up a little bit.)

Cycle Time, continuous mode,
max/min resolution

0.85
(1.18 fps)

Times are averages. Large/Fine resolution is not available in continuous mode. In large/normal mode, shoots 5 frames this fast, then slows to about 2.9 seconds per frame. In TV mode, shoots 65 frames this fast before slowing a little. Buffer clears in 7 seconds for large/fine images, 18 seconds for lowest resolution. Average speed.

Average performance in most areas. "Average" seems to describe most aspects of the Olympus C-5500's timing performance. It's not bad in any respect (although shot to shot speed is rather sluggish), it's just not on a par with the best of the market. Startup is pretty quick at 1.7 seconds to the first shot, but shutter lag is on the long side of average at 0.95-0.97 second for a full autofocus cycle. (As is commonly the case though, "prefocusing" by half-pressing and holding down the shutter button before the shot itself greatly reduces the shutter delay, in this case to 0.18 second.) The most disappointing area of performance though, is its shot to shot speed, requiring over four seconds for each large/fine shot. For whatever reason, the Olympus 5500 doesn't seem to use its internal memory to buffer large/fine images, as all shots take this long, regardless of how many photos you've taken in rapid succession. (So, the good news is that at least the camera doesn't slow any more than this, even if you shoot a lot of photos quickly, one after the other.) In continuous shooting mode, the C-5500 can manage 1.18 frames/second, but only in its "HQ" quality mode.

Power

The Olympus C-5500 Zoom uses a four AA batteries for power, and ordinary alkaline batteries are included with the camera. The table below shows the power drain I measured in various operating modes, and the corresponding run times to be expected from a standard set of 1600 mAh NiMH cells.

Operating Mode

Power
(@6.5 volts on the external power terminal)

Est. Minutes
(four 1600 mA cells)

Capture Mode, w/LCD

251 mA

367

Capture Mode, no LCD

206 mA

447

Half-pressed shutter w/LCD

259 mA

355

Half-pressed w/o LCD

216 mA

425

Memory Write (transient)

291 mA

n/a

Flash Recharge (transient)

708 mA

n/a

Image Playback

123 mA

750

Really excellent battery life. Camera makers have generally made great progress at trimming the power requirements of digital cameras, but the Olympus C-5500 still does a lot better than most, with a worst-case run time of over six hours with a set of "standard" 1600 mAh NiMH rechargeable batteries. (Modern cells with true capacities higher than 2000 mAh would of course do proportionately better.) In playback mode, run time stretches to an incredible 12.5 hours.

Storage Capacity

The Olympus C-5500 Zoom stores its photos on xD memory cards, and a 16 MB
card is included with the camera. (I strongly recommend buying at least
a 128 MB card, preferably a 256 MB one, to give yourself extra space for extended
outings.) The chart below shows how many images can be stored on the included
16 MB card at each size/quality setting.

Image Capacity vs
Resolution/Quality
16 MB Memory Card

Fine

Normal

2592
x 1944

Images
(Avg size)

4
3.7 MB

12
1.3 MB

Approx.
Compression

4:1

12:1

2288
x 1712

Images
(Avg size)

16
2.6 MB

16
981 KB

Approx.
Compression

5:1

15:1

2048
x 1536

Images
(Avg size)

6
2.3 MB

20
785 KB

Approx.
Compression

4:1

12:1

1600
x 1200

Images
(Avg size)

11
1.4 MB

32
497 KB

Approx.
Compression

4:1

12:1

1280
x 960

Images
(Avg size)

17
914 KB

49
320 KB

Approx.
Compression

4:1

11:1

1024
x 768

Images
(Avg size)

26
594 KB

76
208 KB

Approx.
Compression

4:1

10:1

640 x 480

Images
(Avg size)

66
240 KB

166
96 KB

Approx.
Compression

4:1

10:1

Download Speed

The Olympus C-5500 Zoom connects to a host computer via a USB interface. Downloading files to my Sony desktop running Windows XP (Pentium IV, 2.4 GHz), I clocked it at 718 KBytes/second, a pretty good rate, but not up to the speeds of some cameras with high-speed USB v2.0 connections. (Cameras with slow USB interfaces run as low as 300 KB/s, cameras with fast v1.1 interfaces run as high as 600 KB/s. Cameras with USB v2.0 interfaces run as fast as several megabytes/second.) Still, most users of the C-5500 shouldn't find any need for a separate card reader.